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Re:Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days by jacquesm on Saturday August 07, 2021 @02:02AM (#28096134)
> And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now

Except of course there aren't nearly enough electric vehicles to make this a possibility, and if they did the grid capacity wouldn't be there.

Re:Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days by paganel on Saturday August 07, 2021 @03:38AM (#28096633)
About a week or so ago the Greek PM (I think it was the PM) strongly advised his fellow Greek compatriots to use less air conditioning because the electrical grid was very close to collapsing. No way one can add a few million EVs to that grid.

And Greece is a EU member with a resonably well functioning economy (ignoring the financial crisis from a decade ago), I fail to see how poorer countries will be able to make all this work.

Re:Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days by carcostthrow on Saturday August 07, 2021 @05:08AM (#28097096)
Could go either way. Where I live we also had issues with the grid getting close to capacity due to air conditioning.

That said, someone mentioned to me once that it's about 7 years from the time a power company to notify the government of intention to build a power plant to completion. At least for natural gas plants. So it's plausible for the necessary capacity to be built over the next 15 years.

Re:Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days by _ph_ on Saturday August 07, 2021 @06:34AM (#28097489)
It varies from country to country. If your grid is at the brink of collapse, it might be a challenge.

Here in Germany, even changing all cars to electric would increase the total electricity consumption by less than 20%, not counting in the elektricity savings by no longer providing gasoline. This would probably doable by todays grid and the transition to electric cars will take 15 years even in the best circumstances, just by comparing the 45 million cars owned with the 3 million cars sold every year. Enough time to do adjustments to the grid where needed.

One also needs to consider how much electric cars can be beneficial for the grid. With charging of parked cars remotely controlled, they can help with stabilizing the grid.

An electric car in Germany uses about 8kWh/day - that is probably less that the AC unit now use in Greece. And if Greece doesn't have ample solar yet, it would be about time to change that urgently.